THK humblest effort deserves commendation and support when it is made in a right spirit We confess to a weakness for letter-head views and those cheap lithor phs and engravings, which provincial booksellers so abundantly display as baits the small silver superfluities of the stranger's nurse. Common in execution as many of these are. tney are more quickly purchased than sketches could be made even by expert draughtsmen, and they serve years afterwards to remind UB of the famous or cherished

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... s, which we, like other pilgrims on the road of Life, have chanced to visit The above set of brochures which the author has forwarded to us, are illustrated amply with engravings of the letter-paper class, but of fer better execution than the average of such productions. The " Illustrations of the Geologic Scenery of Weymouth, Portland, and Purbeek," and " Illustrations of the Geologic Scenery of Purbeek," each contain eight such views without any descriptive letterpress ; but they are useful memoranda for the geologist or the visitor to bring away from this most picturesque portion of Dorsetshire. In the latter set is a pretty view of the Haggeretone, or Agglestone, as it is there spelt, a natural mass of ruck, with no legitimate claim to the falsely given title of a Druidical remain. The famous Lulworth Cove, Durlstone Head, and St Alban's Head, are among the number of these well-selected views, which thus represent the scenic characters and physical geography of the Tertiaries, the Chalk, Portland Oolite, and Kimmeridge Clay, besides the Wealden and Purbeek beds. The "Illustrated Guide to Swanage" contains more geological and other scientific information than we have ever seen in any work of so unpretending a character. The geological features of the district are undoubtedly worthy of such full notice, and the author has well pointed out the conciseness, so to speak, of the display within this limited area of many geological groups of strata. In a subsequent place the author points out the high commercial value of many of the mineral products of the locality described, the vast beds of fine pottery-clay, the fire-clay, the alum-and copperas-shales, pyrites and iron-ore, paving-, building-, cement-, lime-stones, and marble, the bituminous shales so rich in gas and paraffine. The natural divisions of the region are next given, attention being specially drawn to the two great hill-ranges of chalk and oolite, stretching nearly due west from Swanage Bay, dividing the tract into two upland and three valley districts ; the chalk range forming the south-western extremity of the great basin of Hampshire and Sussex. Mr. Beetle's excavations and researches, his discoveries of mammalian remains, the stone and marble quarries, from sixty to seventy in number^ and other points of geological interest, are all successively noticed, and with sufficient accuracy to male the observations of value to the student, as well as to the general reader, or to the mere visitor. The shelly-marble of this district is well known from its extensive use in ecclesiastical buildings of the Middle Ages, and Mr. Brannon's account of the Purbeek strata, and the rude manner in which the quarrying work is still carried on, will not only be of interest to our readers, but will afford a good example of the style of this very unassuming production :-" The true Purbecks, or thin beds of shelly limestone, alternating with clays and sands, formerly considered as Wealden, now as upper oolite, furnish the great staple of the stone exports from this district They consist of an immense number of beds from a quarter of an inch to four feet in thickness, mostly very hard and close grained, and separated from each other chiefly by beds of clay, varied with sandy and loamy, gVavelly or marly earth A very great proportion of the stone beds are useless, either on account of their excessive hardness, their